Our lucky streak of relative C-19 safety came to a sudden stop yesterday, as four new cases were diagnosed in one household in south Auckland, and it’s not (yet) clear where the original source of the infection was. So we’re back to Level 3 here in the city, and the rest of the country is elevated from Level 1 to Level 2. The Prime Minister’s plan is to continue this for (only) at least three days, so we’ll see… Meanwhile going back through my archives for a new and appropriate Isolation Antidote, I came across this image, which I made almost exactly 18 years ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was about an hour after sunrise and I was geared up in waders for a quiet morning of fishing for brook trout in my favorite little stream in northern Minnesota. Rain was predicted, so I was protected with a waterproof jacket and my favorite fishing hat, and I wasn’t worried at all—until I saw these clouds and started to appreciate the turbulence that was going on overhead. 
I considered postponing my fishing but persevered and, as it turned out, things calmed down over the course of the next hour and only a few scattered drops fell. When I had a look at my photographic results later, I found that, by capturing the structure in the sky, the details in the bushes, trees, grasses, and water were so dark as to be nearly unrecoverable. I tried converting it to monochrome, but it’s was a disappointment. But more recently I’ve had another go at it with some of my newer favorite after-capture tools, and this is far closer to the image that I envisioned when I made the initial exposures.
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krikitarts 
Yesterday I read about Auckland’s “relapse,” and the lack of any obvious cause for it.
Those clouds sure look menacing. I doubt I’d have stuck it out the way you did.
The idiot who became ill enough to go to the doctor had made a trip to Rotorua and back while she was symptomatic; not sure yet how this will affect how it all plays out. Regarding the clouds, rest assured that I kept a sharp eye on them and stayed close to where I’d parked my car in case the turbulence looked like it might increase.
It looks pretty unreal and certainly is dramatic. Sorry to hear about the new cases – let’s hope it’s contained with that quick reaction and everyone’s cooperation.
I second that hope most sincerely.
I’m just listening to the overseas news of N.Z. (or should I say Auckland’s outbreak). Sorry to hear of the 4 new cases. Hopefully, N.Z. can quickly control the cluster, but with no knowledge of where they might have contracted the virus, it will be a hard task.
Apart from the enormous outbreaks in our Australian Aged Care sector, I believe our new case numbers merely reflect the high volume of testing. Overnight we have had 21 deaths, 16 in the aged care sector. Maybe there are many hundreds more who haven’t been tested and are asymptomatic.
I think the B & W image above is excellent at depicting the threatening cloud cover. The foliage in the trees and ground cover definitely have a more sombre appearance adding to the atmosphere of the image.
I’m confident that our leaders are taking suitably-precautious steps to do what can be done to contain this new outbreak. In spite of recommendations to the contrary, there has been a rather predictable rush of panic-buying in the grocery stores, but it seems to be letting up a bit, thankfully. As for the image, I had to increase the contrast rather dramatically, and although I might have done it differently now, I’m still pleased with the result of that moment in time.
That is one dramatic sky, and how you have captured the drama with all those undulating folds in the clouds is admirable. Nice one, Gary. Unfortunately I think we are going to have this up and down with covid for a while. So long as they can keep it under control we might have a chance. But some folk still don’t respect it, unfortunately.
And therein lies the entire key to staying at least one step ahead of the mindless beast. There is absolutely no room for complacency, and it requires every gram of respect that we can muster. Thanks for the compliment, Pete. I’m tempted to revisit the processing, as I still have the original image, and starting with Lightroom this time, but it’s only a 506-kb jpeg, which is why it’s so grainy. Maybe with this unexpected extra (lock-) down time…
Hopefully that case and the few involved with the exposure remain isolated and it does not spread further. The cluelessness and lack of responsibility some people have been showing is very disappointing. At least there it is an odd person or two. Here it is dozens, hundreds, and in the case of a recent motorcycle rally…thousands.
That is one ominously scary sky. Glad that it relented and only dropped a few sprinkles on you.
At first it reminded me a little of the clouds in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the alien ship was visiting the farm in Indiana, but in much slower motion and without the lightning. It was fascinating to watch it develop and then settle down. I was really expecting quite a bit more than just the sprinkling that it produced.
And there are more cases appearing now, which was pretty much inevitable, but we’re all hoping that they’ll keep them corralled and in close check. Time will tell.
NZ does a fine job of keeping things under control so I am confident that it won’t get too out of hand.
Any time I see particularly ominous clouds it reminds me of Ghostbusters.
What a fabulous photo. In this case, I’d say the monochrome treatment is perfect for displaying the variety of textures: sky, pines, plants, water. Those clouds look like mammatus with an attitude. I’m not sure how the cloud-specialists would categorize them, but from my perspective, they look rather like lava, and just as threatening.
I wish I’d had a camera that would have allowed me to make a time-lapse sequence; that would really have been special. It was like watching a stormy sea upside-down, but in slow motion.